Originally Posted by
crowbike
I've been looking at bicyclerollingresistance but I'm a little skeptical of the results. The test seems very different to real world usage. It's a very curved surface, which IMO causes a smaller point of contact so more pressure and an amplified result.
The results are also not hugely useful. They find, almost every time that a stiffer harder tire has better rolling resistance, and most tires have lower rolling resistance at their highest psi, but it's well kown that in the real world, running a rock hard tire at its max psi is not beneficial to reducing rolling resistance.
To follow their logic to conclusion I think if they tested a thin solid wheel it would have fantastically low rolling resistance, and technically top their tables, but it's real world usage would be non existant.
For these reasons I take all results on that site with quite a few pinches of salt.